Good morning Pokhara!

Good morning! How did you sleep? Did the Metallica cover band across the street keep you up? Did the drunky voices under your window bother you? Did the cockroaches disturb your rest? A little, no, and yes.

The Metallicoids (no idea of their actual name) were only a bother in that their version of Sad But True was utterly lifeless and spitless. I barely noticed the drunky voices (even the drunks go to bed early in Nepal). Then there were the roaches.

K’s gasp at finding the first big fella came while I was in the shower. There were a pair of beer glasses provided inexplicably with the room, and I could only imagine this is their most frequent application as I chased the critter around with my would-be cage. The little bastard was fast though, and kept escaping. Completely, completely…halfway. Oops. I am sorry Little Brother, I didn’t mean for it to happen this way.

But I also have a healthy fear/respect for the invincibility of cockroaches so I left the glass over the body, once I got done grinding it enough to convince myself it wasn’t suffering. That crackling noise is singular.

Lights out. Noise on the bedside table next to my face. Flashlight. Second big fat shiny bastard of active antennae, clicking carapace, and moving mandibles. The second chase took longer, since he could take easy shelter on the wicker shelf thing, but eventually he was at the back of the end table cupboard. I lined up the glass and pushed. He was half a roach torso too slow. Damnit, not again.

Both glasses were now dedicated to showcasing my accidental conquests, so the third scrittler went unharrassed, and we turned off the light before a fourth could make a debut, turning the fan on low to cover the noise of their skittering legs and clicking body segments.

You keep imagining them crawling over your feet, don’t you?

One last delightful detail. You may have heard the rumor that you shouldn’t squish a roach because its eggs/babies will come flying off and get everywhere. I wasn’t sure I believed that (despite having a similar experience in Africa with a spider) but when I looked in the glass in the morning there were definitely several small points of movement. And oddly enough they seemed to be further deconstructing the body…which was already turning yellow.